


#SplittingTheLog

by Mantis21



Category: DC Super Hero Girls (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Chains, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Hal is a bit of an ass, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Polygamy, Public Sex, Sex, Some noncon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:53:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26480713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mantis21/pseuds/Mantis21
Summary: A protest to save a tree takes a wrong turn when Jess leaves Hal chained to the tree by himself. Things only get more complicated when his crazed ex Carol happens to stroll by...
Relationships: Carol Ferris/Hal Jordan, Jessica Cruz/Carol Ferris, Jessica Cruz/Hal Jordan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	#SplittingTheLog

“Come on, Hal, please?”

“No, Jess. I already told you, I’m busy.”

“Busy?" The word was repeated with scornful distrust. "Busy with what? Your grades are in the toilet, so I know you’re not busy studying.”

Hal Jordan’s locker slammed shut with a loud _CLANG_ that echoed through the hall. Slinging his olive-colored backpack over his shoulder, he spun around to face his kinda-sorta friend Jessica Cruz with a blinding grin that showed off all his perfectly pearly white teeth. He struck a bold pose, and flexed his large muscles.

“Busy pumping iron,” he said smoothly, “with the boys.”

He expected Jess to swoon, or at least blush. Why wouldn’t she? That’s just what girls did when a bronze Adonis like himself flexed for them.

To his disappointment, her only visible reactions were drooping eyelids and an exaggerated yawn. “Diana does it better,” she said dismissively. 

“Yeah, figures someone like you would say that...”

Her uninterested eyes suddenly lit up with angry fire.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” she asked in a deathly hiss. 

Gulping, Hal took a nervous step back and held up his arms. Jess was a nonviolent girl normally, but she was also a Green Lantern, which meant she had plenty of nonlethal ways to discipline him whenever he offended her. He knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to summon a labyrinth of hard light and leave him there to run around like a rat looking for cheese. He had to be careful with his next words.

“I-I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, trying to avoid her glower. “It’s perfectly fine, you know? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your lifestyle...I mean, I have a total bromance with Steve Trevor. It’s not super gay or anything, like you...I mean, not like you. Unless...are you? I don't know, what do you want me to say?”

Weirdly, listening to her friend’s moronic and borderline-offensive babble calmed her down. It reminded Jess she wasn’t dealing with a bad person. Just a really, really, _really_ stupid one.

She simmered down, and rubbed her temple, muttering something in Spanish. She was going home with a headache, and she knew it.

“Forget it. And look, Hal, I’m not asking for much. I just want you to be there at least _one time_ as we fight to protect the trees.”

“And I told you, I’m busy.”

“And I told you that I know that’s bullspit.”

“Ooh, bullspit. Careful, Jess, there might be kids around.”

Jessica snorted. “Vulgarity is the refuge for those too dumb or inarticulate to make their points.”

“And yet you still haven’t made your point to me.”

“Come on, Hal! Think about the planet. If we don’t do something soon, it’ll end up inhospitable to humans. What are you going to do then. Move to another planet?”

“Uh, yeah.” Hal pointed to the emerald ring on his finger. “I’m a Lantern, I can do that, remember?”

“O-Oh," said Jess. "Oh right...”

This was going poorly. The meat-headed jock just wasn't going to listen to any appeal. Logos, ethos, and pathos weren't strong enough to borrow through that thick skull of his...but maybe eros was.

That was when Jess decided to pull out the big guns.

She widened her eyes to puppy-dog levels of pupil pleading. She softened her expression, letting her bottom lip quiver gently. She slapped her cheeks lightly to put some red in them. Then, finally, she leaned into Hal’s body, wrapping one hand around his broad shoulder and resting the other on his chest.

“ _Please, Hal~ If you won’t do it for the planet, do it for me, your best friend~_ ”

His heart thumped powerfully enough for her to feel it, and she resisted the urge to grin evilly.

“I, uh, well...”

He was getting flustered; it was obvious by how his body and how his face swapped between red and pink and yellow and purple and white, as if he were part-chameleon. Jess imagined that if she squinted, she might be able to see his small primate brain shooting sparks into his empty skull.

She almost had him! Just a little more…

His hand suddenly swung up and, before she realized it, green light burst from his ring and shot into his eyes.

“What?!”

“HA! Yes!” howled Hal, throwing his hands up in triumph. “I’ve blinded myself. You can’t trick me with those puppy dog eyes anymore, space witch!”

“Really?!" shouted Jess in disbelief. "You’d blind yourself just so you don't want to help me save a single tree?!”

“Like I said,” said Hal as he turned away from her, “I’m going to busy pumping iron with the boys.”

Then he walked right into a locker. Because he was temporarily blind.

Jess groaned, completely and utterly annoyed. At this point, she didn’t even want the idiot there anymore, but she would be damned if she let herself lose a battle of wills to _Hal Jordan_ of all people. She had one last trump card, an ace in the hole, and she reluctantly decided to use it:

“Did I mention there were going to be girls there?”

“Wait, there’s going to be girls? Oh, well, fuck the boys, I’m in!”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Saturday. Noon. By the cafe near the dog park. Be there.”

She walked away as the oafish quarterback pumped his fists. She felt completely humiliated, and even the thought of Hal struggling to get home without use of his eyes couldn’t cheer her up...

...okay, it did cheer her up a little.

* * *

At the crack of dawn, Saturday morning, Hal Jordan (his self-inflicted blindness finally worn off) was already up and at ‘em. As the sun poked out over the dark horizon, he was in the shower, scrubbing his muscular body with a fat bar of soap as droplets of steaming hot water rained down on his skin.

He hopped out of the shower, waist covered with a fluffy green towel, and went to brush his teeth and gel his hair. After about forty minutes, he was done. He winked at his reflection and shot himself a bright, shiny smile.

“Lookin’ good, gorgeous. As always.”

He went back to his room to get dressed in his usual tight jeans and olive shirt. After spraying the air with perfume and bathing in the scented air particles, he went to his kitchen for the most important meal of the day.

“So what are you thinking, tum-tum?” Hal asked his stomach as he slapped his six-pack. “You thinking bacon and eggs? Of course you’re thinking bacon and eggs. If it's not bacon and eggs, is it even breakfast?”

Satisfied with the thought, he went to the refrigerator and grabbed two eggs. He was about to reach for the bacon when a thought occurred to him (I know, I’m shocked too).

“Wait...if I’m going to go meet up with vegan chicks, shouldn’t I avoid bacon and eggs? They might smell it on me when I try to take them to Poundtown.”

His stomach erupted in protesting growls as Hal tearfully put away the animal products. “I know, buddy, I know,” he said mournfully, “but if it’s a choice between pig and poon, I’m choosing poon.”

As he tried to convince himself that it would be worth it, he scavenged the fridge for something non-animal to eat. All he could find was an apple at the back of the fridge that looked older and more wrinkled than the Oan Guardians of the Universe.

He reluctantly ate it, then checked the time. Still two hours before he needed to head out. He killed the time by alternating between browsing on his phone (“Oh hell yeah, that Kara chick went topless at another rave!”) and fixing up his hair. It was already awesome, but it needed that extra special touch to make it more...awesomer.

But then the time finally came. In a proud abuse of his powers, he used his Green Lantern to send himself soaring into the sky and flew over to Jess. He landed in the bushes nearby, which messed up his hair ("Dammit!") until he conjured a comb to fix it. Then he stepped out and casually walked over to the protest, as if he had just taken a taxi.

He saw Jess waving to him, and he went over to her.

“Hal, so good to see you! I almost thought you were going to bail.”

“What? I would never. You’re my good friend, Jess, and I also really care about protecting the, uh, trees. I just had to come.”

Perhaps he would’ve been more believable if he had actually looked at her while he spoke. But his eyes were flighty things, scanning the crowd for cute granola girls that he could chat up. Jess noticed, and was clearly unamused.

“Well thank you, Hal,” she said coldly. “Just get over here and let me get you your chains.”

“Sure, sure, of course, whatever you say,” he said, not hearing her. He was too busy throwing winks to a cute blonde protester that had caught his eye.

What drew his attention back to Jess was the sound of a metallic lock clicking.

“What the—”

He struggled in his place, but he couldn’t move. He looked down and saw, to his complete shock, that he had been chained to the tree. Tightly chained, too, as he barely had enough room to wiggle. He saw Jess stuff the key to his lock back in her purse, and he shouted, “What the hell, Jess? Did you just chain me to this tree?!”

She looked at him with an incredulous look on her face, as if she were confused. “Yes?” she answered. “It’s one of our tactics for saving trees. We discussed this, remember?”

“NO! NO, I DON’T REMEMBER!”

“Of course you don’t. I was counting on that,” chirped Jess. “But you still gave your consent to be chained to this tree, with no chance to renege.”

“The hell there’s no chance to renege! I’ll just use my ring to get out of here.”

Smirking, Jess held up her closed fist. She brought just centimetres from Hal’s face, and then opened it up.

And there, sitting on her palm, was his ring.

Hal’s squeak of horror said it all.

“Don’t worry, Hal, this is for your own good, as well as the planet’s,” said Jess. “I made sure to have this marked as part of your mandatory extracurricular activities.”

Hal sighed, resigned to his fate. He didn’t need the points – he was a star athlete, all his points were in that – but at least she was trying to not be cruel. He could work with this. He could try to work with this.

“Fine,” he ultimately relented. “I’ll stay chained to the tree and save it from the evil beavers or whatever. How long do I have to be here?”

“Oh, not too long. Just a week.”

“A WEEK?! But that’s forever!”

“Don't worry about it. I’ll be sure to bring you lots of gluten-free bagels to keep your energy up. My money, my treat,” said Jess cheerfully. Before Hal could raise another complaint, she turned to the protesting crowd and shouted, “Okay, everyone, we can go home now! Hal is taking one for the team!”

A cacophony of cheers and shouts rose from the gathered activists. A chant of “Hal! Hal! Hal!” rose from the crowd. Admittedly, Hal did love to hear people chanting his name, so he did his best to smile as the environmentalists began to pour out.

Jess was the last to make her move to leave. When she did, Hal shouted, “Wait!” She turned to him and he said, “So you’re just going to leave me here? For a week?”

“Of course not. I’m not a sadist,” said Jess. “I’ll be sure to give you company every single day. Just the two of us.” It was hard to notice, but her cheeks seemed to slightly flush red. "Doesn't that sound like fun?"

He clearly didn't think so.

“Really? After you chained me up, you think we can spend quality time together?” spat Hal. “Why don’t you just leave? Go...go give vaccines to stray hamsters or whatever stupid things you do to pretend you make a difference in the world.”

Jess winced. Hal felt raw satisfaction in knowing that his words managed to sting her.

“I do make a difference in the world,” she said.

A better man would’ve stopped there. A better man would've calmed himself. A better man would've been more civil with what he said next. A better man would've tried to reach an agreement with her, one that satisfied them both.

But Hal was a petty man, baking in the sun while tight chains squeezed him like a boa constrictor, all because she tricked him into spending his weekend doing something as stupid as protecting a dumb tree. She clearly thought she was better than him, and that she could use him however she wanted. Typical Jess; always so high and mighty.

He figured it was time someone knocked her down a peg. It was long overdue.

“Sure you do, Jess. You spend all day trying to find any issue that can give you a chance to pull one of these little stunts in the hopes that someone will actually notice them. I bet you don’t even really care – you just want to seem like a good person in front of everyone. And if you do actually care, then that might actually be sadder. You think chaining people to trees is actually helping anyone? Sure, keep believing that. Maybe if you chain yourself to enough trees, global warming will just magically reverse itself, all the wars will stop as soldiers and terrorists rush to hold hands, and every rich banker will start shitting money on the poor. Keep believing that, Jess. You know, I don’t even want you to come spend time with me over the next week. The only people you should be spending time with are the folks at Arkham Asylum, because sister, you’re crazy if you think you’ll ever actually make a difference in the world.”

The angry, spiteful beast in his chest roared with gratification as Jess’ face fell. He could see the hurt in her pupils, the doubt that poured from them like the tears that were starting to form.

But then something strange happened; his vengeful pleasure turned on him. The sheer scale of devastation that he could see in her big brown eyes quickly had his own face fall as he realized just what he had said.

Jess didn’t say anything at first. She turned around and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. When she turned back, her face was a cold mask of pure hatred.

“I hope the loggers saw through your body to get to the tree.”

Hal opened his mouth to say something, _anything_ , but it was too late. Jess sprinted off into the city, leaving Hal alone to stew in his guilt.

* * *

_Why did I say those things to her?_

Night had fallen, and the streetlights were turning on one by one, creating a long stretching column of light. They shone upon a forlorn Hal, slumped in bondage, more thoughtful in his demeanor than he had been in a long, long time.

“Why did I say those things to her?” he grunted aloud. Ruefulness dripped from every syllable. For hours, he had been trying and failing to banish one image from his mind, and that was the image of Jess’ face – her hurt, hurt face.

“W-Well, she shouldn’t have chained me to a tree,” said Hal stubbornly.

His guilt only grew.

He sighed, running his hands over his face. “Still, I shouldn’t have done that to her,” he admitted. “And it wasn’t even true at all. She does a lot of good things for people. I mean, she punched that meteor back into space the other day”—he chuckled—“but even without her ring, she does good things. She gives seniors company when their own grandkids won’t, she looks after pets when their owners won’t...she’s a real hero. Not like me. If it weren’t for the ring, I’d just be tossing footballs around and failing geometry tests like...like...”

He sighed again.

“...like every other jock jerk in the world.”

The young man decided it would be best to apologize. He fitfully wiggled against his chains, hoping to create enough room for him to reach into his pocket for his phone, but no such luck. It seemed like he would have to apologize to her when she came back... _if_ she came back, that is.

With nothing else he could do, he put his head back gently. “I’m an asshole,” he said. “If there’s any justice in the world, some horrible thing will step out of the shadows and tear me to shreds.”

In the darkness, a can was kicked.

Hal shrieked and pressed himself to the tree. “No, wait, I take that back!” he shouted. “I may have been an ass to Jess, but not enough to die about it! Please, Guardians, save me!”

“What’s all that screaming about?” came a feminine voice.

A _very_ feminine voice. Rrrrrr~

Hal stopped his shrieking and quickly put on his confident game face, his guilt and resolutions now forgotten in the face of female conquest. “Heeeeeey,” he said slowly, smoothly. “Why don’t you come into the light, pretty thing, I can’t see you.”

He heard the sound of footsteps approaching. He hoped his hair looked good.

Then the young woman he had heard stepped underneath the light, where he could see her and she could see him. Their eyes met, and when they did, both of their jaws dropped.

“H-Haly?”

Hal’s face paled.

It was Carol Ferris.

His psychotic ex.

**Author's Note:**

> oof. Very oof indeed. 
> 
> I'm hoping that both Hal and Jess came off as in-the-wrong but still sympathetic to one extent or another. Will they be able to resolve their issues? Well, we still have two more chapters to get through to find out. Both more explicit than this one, if you get what I mean knudgeknudgewinkwink


End file.
